Toussaint's Private French Notebook

Translation to French

Note: The difficulty with news stories is that they are often run-on sentences, with layers of noun modifications. A phrase like “deadliest mass shooting” is not something you read every day, so how does one handle it? “Prospective gun buyer”…how do the French handle the word “prospective”. Is it idiomatic? Anyway, I gave the translations my best effort, and this post also serves to show the many people who ask me questions like, “Does America have immigration laws? Laws for gun control?” that the issue goes beyond, “Yes, We do.” Every city, state and the country as a whole, has more than enough laws, it’s often political posturing over how they are or are not being applied, that is the issue.

In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in American history that took place in Orlando on June 12, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) announced Wednesday that he is taking steps to give the Federal Bureau of Investigation at least one additional tool to help them detect and prevent such attacks before they happen.

Nelson filed legislation today to ensure that any individual who is, or has been, investigated for possible ties to terrorism is entered into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which gun shop owners use to run background checks on prospective gun buyers.

An employee of a gun store in Jensen Beach says the man involved in the terror attack at a nightclub in Orlando tried to buy Level 3 body armor. The store said it reported the unusual request to the FBI, weeks before the shootings.

The owner of Lotus Gunworks said in a news conference Thursday he reported the unusual request to the FBI who has repeatedly asked for people to “see something, say something,” if they witness anything that makes them feel uncomfortable.

Note: This article was just too crazy to resist…great new French words too.

An 85-year-old wannabe sugar daddy who went to a web site seeking kinky companionship wound up with double trouble instead, the Daily News has learned. 85-year-old man robbed, tied up by two twin teenage sisters he met on dating website: officials.

Paul Aronson met Shalaine Foster on the site, http://www.seekingarrangement.com and had a dinner date with her twin sister, Shaina, according to court papers. When back at his E. 38th St. home, the pair tied him up and robbed him of his wallet and $470 in cash, authorities said Friday.

The elderly Manhattan man was bound to a coffee table for 20 hours while the twin teenage vixens he had just wined and dined stole his credit cards and $470 in cash — and then went shopping for makeup, court papers revealed.

Shalaine Foster and her sister Shaina, both 17, were busted Monday and each was charged with kidnapping, robbery, burglary, larceny and assault. The teens, who both have rap sheets, were ordered held without bail in Manhattan Criminal Court, records show.

Paul Aronson’s troubles began on Oct. 1 when he went on the http://www.seekingarrangement.com web site, which encourages users to “Find Your Sugar Baby.” It features a bevy of babes from around the country with names like Diamond and Princess and lists their supposed ages and locations.

After taking a liking to Shaina, Aronson invited her to dinner, sources said. She showed up with Shalaine. Hoping to move from fine dining to forbidden fruit, Aronson took the teens back to his E. 38th St. apartment, the sources said.

There — after a few cocktails — the twins pulled out zipties and relieved him of his dough, officials said. Aronson called the cops after he was found — still bound but on the floor — by a friend, the sources said. Outside the courtroom, a man who identified himself as their brother said “the story sounds f—-d up.”

“But it’s also an 85-year-old wealthy man who basically has these young girls like they’re in a candy store,” he said. “We know he bought them liquor and intoxicated them and took him back to the house.”

Shaina has a 2013 felony arrest for possession of a sealed instrument, plus one sealed arrest, records show. Shalaine was arrested last April for introduction of prison contraband, plus two sealed arrests.

I normally do not post anything about financial markets, but I do read a great deal about them. The article above caught my eye, so let’s translate it to French, and see how we do….I need to work on my numbers (and pronouns) so this is a good time to start…

Although more attention is being focused on Switzerland’s gold referendum on Nov. 30, currency analysts at Nomura said a “yes” vote could be difficult to achieve, according to the country’s voting statistics.

According to a research report published Tuesday by Nomura, referendums in Switzerland are fairly popular; however, very few are actually able to pass. Since 2000, the country has voted on 66 different initiatives, about 4.7 referendums per year, and only 15% have passed.

In the Nov. 30 referendum, Swiss citizens will be voting on three initiatives: whether or not the Swiss National Bank should increase its gold reserves to 20%, that the central bank should stop selling its precious metals and that all its gold should be held within the country.

The analysts added that the immediate aftermath of a “yes” vote be “business as usually,” as the central bank would have two years to repatriate its gold reserves – currently 20% of its reserves are held at the Bank of England and 10% of its reserves are held at the Bank of Canada; the SNB would also have five years to boost its gold holdings to 20% of its total reserves.

In the mostly likely scenario, analysts said that the central bank will probably just buy more gold as this would have the least impact on the country’s currency. They added that the SNB would have to, on average, buy about 9.62% of the world’s gold production each year for the next five years.

The second scenario would be for the central bank to reduce its foreign exchange reserves and purchase a smaller amount of gold; however, this would lead to a stronger franc, which in turn could hurt the country’s economic growth.

The third scenario Nomura sees is for the SNB to reduce its foreign exchange reserves by 69% and not actually buy any gold; however, this is unlikely because it would lead to an extremely strong currency.

“What may seem like a simple decision to the Swiss electorate has in fact complicated consequences for policy makers at the SNB in respect to its holdings of gold and foreign exchange reserves,” they said.

Note: This would explain why gold and gold miners have been pushed down to these lower levels. Someone’s accumulating in case the vote causes a five-year bull run in gold related stocks. I believe all gold miners are selling below book value at this time….so I bought some (MUX is my favorite).